Bitten But Not Dead
by Wermo
Summary: Sylar's neck in the grip of some lovely vampire's fangs. What happens next to our favourite villain? Obviously AU and possibly oneshot though with enough meaningful reviews that would change. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes**

It had struck fast, almost as fast as he could fly telekinetically and yet had been so quiet he hadn't heard it. And so he went down in a heap the moment it struck. Now he was awakening without the slightest bit of pain. It tickled actually.

The vampire feasting at his neck was – for some unknown reason – totally oblivious to the fact he still lived or was conscious at all. So he enjoyed the suckling embrace, with nary a drop of his precious blood going to waste. She was a practiced blood sucker this one.

He had to resist chuckling because until two minutes ago he never would have even believed that true vampires lived. Well, you know, existed because they certainly didn't live.

He knew now why he'd never heard her. Neither her heart beat nor her lungs require breath. This blond vixen was completely undead.

Would she "live" forever if he didn't kill her? Was she attempting to turn him into a vampire himself?

The vampire caressed his neck and his torso tenderly, lovingly while he decided to surprise her. "How's the blood?" he asked.

She rose from what he supposed should be his corpse, levitating slightly, staring contempt. She didn't speak but snarled instead.

"Ooh," he said as the puncture marks on his neck closed. He noticed her confusion. "You didn't expect that did you?" The vampire slowly started floating away from him, but he didn't believe it was afraid of him. That very thought intrigued him. He began to levitate and follow her. "So, now that you've had your snack, um," he paused, for once actually lost for words. It was only temporary as he quickly recovered. "Do you have a name?"

"Paula," the lady said with only the smallest fangs noticeable as she spoke. Her head was cocked to one side. "Are you an immortal," she asked.

_So there were other immortals, not just him and Claire. Thank goodness!_ he thought. "I am but I'm not a vampire like yourself." He chuckled and looked – really looked – at what made this girl a vampire.

The solution was just about to reveal itself to his scrutiny when she pulled a dagger from her belt and threw it at him.

He stopped it in mid air but only after the sharp blade had touched the middle of his forehead.

Now he knew; the reason why there were so few regenerating heroes in the world was because vampires knew how to kill one. Most of them anyway. He felt a smile creep onto his face as the vampire lady frowned and threw three more daggers his way. There was no way he could let these get anywhere near him.

He strongly suspected that should she survive this encounter he'd be hunted by other vampires until they finally figured out a way to kill him.

"It was nice to meet you Paula," he said, and bowed, before he sliced her head off.

He'd guessed she couldn't die from a simple decapitation and he was right. He asked, as he telekinetically held both her head and her body in place against a wall. "Do I have to ask how to kill you or will you kindly return the favour of trying to kill me, repeatedly?" He smiled brilliantly.

"Never!" Paula hissed.

"Suit yourself." He stretched out his hand and sliced the scalp clean off the vampire's head. Unlike his many human victims – those he didn't surprise of course – this one never struggled or screamed. It was nowhere near as fun but he was definitely curious.

Paula just kept talking as he analyzed her brain.

"That doesn't hurt you know," she said. It was the only thing she'd babbled that had even remotely interested him.

He nodded and said, "What about this?"

With a defiant smile on her face that clearly said, "Bite me," she let out a blood curdling scream.

He poked and prodded into her lifeless brain until blood restarted to flow, returning to liquid form from having been congealed for what appeared to be 2053 years. He closed her up and said, "You know Paula, you're old."

Paula began to choke, unable to speak. Sylar smiled once more as he helped her to breathe with a few sharp jabs to her mostly dead but reviving diaphragm. "Breathe."

After two minutes Paula was once more very much alive. "What did you do? How did you reverse it?" She seemed happy beyond belief.

She was very beautiful but a tiny spark alerted Sylar to something else that was special about her. "You have a power." What a rare and uniquely powerful gift it was. He stretched his hand toward her and once more lopped off her scalp even as she had been ready to give him a huge hug and quite possibly a mad humping for being returned to life.

None of that mattered; he relished her screams as he took her power.

It was the first vampire he'd ever met. On a hunch – one that proved correct – he was no longer interested in hunting humans with powers. Sylar, from that night forward, only hunted vampires because all vampires had powers.

And they were good: his personal favourites were being able to see in the infrared and a little supernatural charm.


	2. Chapter 2

If Sylar had once thought he was powerful, he had never had the imagination to even envision true power. In less than two weeks, he became not only invincible but also, for all intents and purposes, all seeing.

He could see the invisible thanks to the ability to see power in use. He could differentiate the undead from the living simply by smelling their blood, or by seeing in the infrared. Indeed, now that he had started to hunt the unliving (as they sometimes jokingly referred themselves), he had made his biggest discovery.

How Chandra Suresh – or his idiot son Mohinder Suresh – would have loved to track and test the vampire population for their powers! Most if not all vampires in fact had multiple powers. Some were vastly powerful but were almost always countered with what Sylar liked to call a negative power, a power that was in fact purely detrimental to its owner.

For example, consider his second vampire: a young lad (by vampire standards), one who was neither beautiful nor agile had the strongest power he'd ever seen. The only problem was that this vampire also had the misfortune of being tremendously unlucky.

Now Sylar hadn't always believed in luck – in fact believed one made their own luck – but seeing was believing. This poor vampire was both completely invincible but had one glaring weakness. When he fed, his impervious skin, his otherwise completely invisible body, was not only visible, but killable. Hadn't it been utterly surprising for this poor young vampire to see his latest prey chop him in two and gut his tremendously useful power while discarding the useless one?

In short, Sylar hunted the undead for their useful powers and culling the useless ones.

Of course, when one killed a dozen vampires in a single week, word came round in the vampire world. There was a nasty bounty on his pretty head and vampires were lining up trying to chop him into bits.

"Thank you Johnny, you poor bastard," Sylar said chuckling. The hunting clan was swarming around him but simply couldn't see him standing in the middle of the room. They knew where he was – for a reason he didn't fully understand as of yet – but couldn't pinpoint his exact location. It was funny but they couldn't even hear him when he spoke.

"Of course, that was Lucie's power: the power of the in between. Living between spaces in such a way that I'm only there in the fourth and higher dimensions. Of course I didn't keep her negative power you dimwits." He chuckled darkly. This was so easy.

He twisted into normal space with a swoosh as his body occupied the space air had just been taking. It was true he couldn't actually travel in that state yet, but perhaps one of these vampires would be kind enough to offer a power that allowed such travel?

Two dozen vampires were upon him in mere seconds. Their hands and fangs were on him in splendid time. "Is that everyone?" Sylar asked the crowd.

A lone voice answered. "We don't know how you're killing our kind but we're not going to let go of you."

Sylar smiled his most congenial smile. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Silver weapons tickled his arms, his legs, even his neck. More than a few anointed wooden stakes tried to penetrate his chest and fire and ice neither had an effect on him. Others still had tried to literally bite his head off or carry him thousands of feet into the air but no matter how much effort they used they couldn't budge him.

Another voice penetrated the darkness. "How are you doing this? Why can't we harm you?"

Sylar laughed out loud, "Oh Johnny, I'd say your power was the best!" With his shapeshifting power he was able to contain just a smidge of his body in between space, thereby keeping him grounded in more ways than one.

"Not John Warbler? No one can harm John Warbler?!"

If vampires could be said to even feel fear, these vampires sounded like they did. It was the most beautiful feeling in the world to Sylar. "Uh uh," he said with a finger raised. "Play with me," he said.

It took no time at all to bring these vampires into the space between spaces. Here they were powerless. They couldn't move and even though he couldn't either, it was an easy matter to cut their brain cases or through whatever weak spot they had if skin was their forte, and then move around in real space to browse his latest treasures.

This bunch was a spectacular find. Not only were their powers varied, but their negative powers were also vastly more interesting. One female had a large kill spot to holy water, a male would die completely if you immolated his right foot in flame. Another male could walk on water but could die from rain – he was really pale – and yet another would die if they drank so much as a drop of O positive blood.

"Wow, you have to really watch what you eat huh?" Sylar said to that one as he browsed the wriggling vampire in question.

"I'll get you worm if it's the last thing I do!" he replied.

Sylar completely ignored him and instead searched for the vampire's useful power. After several moments, Sylar asked him, "So, tell me what your power is and I'll let you try to kill me."

"Never!" he said.

Sylar wasn't particularly concerned though for some reason this one's true power eluded him. Search as he might, it just wasn't in his DNA. "How old are you?" The vampire held his mouth shut for many minutes. Others nearby seemed to take resolve from this one's defiance. Sylar couldn't have hope going for his new prey or he'd never hear the end of it. "Silence won't protect you." A few more minutes passed then Sylar finally said, "Delay the inevitable then," and moved on to the next, who was quickly turned into a normal human, to the delight of every vampire there.

Several begged him to make them human on the spot, not that they really had a choice in the matter. It was easier to take their powers when they were human and dead than undead and wriggling, making decoding the DNA infinitely more difficult.

Once Sylar had changed all the vampires around him into humans – minus the one he couldn't read – he slew each and every one. Turning back to the silent vampire he said, "You and I share a certain cold bloodedness. We both like blood and screams."

The silent vampire broke his silence. "We share nothing but the urge to kill."

"Really?" Sylar took a few steps closer. "I thought you were a blood-thirsty killer…" Sylar laughed at his wit.

"I refer to your hunger, Gabriel."

For the first moment in a very long time, the pretty much invincible Sylar felt rather conspicuous and vulnerable. He wasn't scared for his life – at least not yet – but he did feel like a child to this ancient vampire.

With a little false bravado he asked, "Just how old are you?"


End file.
